by Tristan Vick
“Good!” Dathrium says, clapping and rubbing his hands together. “Now that we’re all on good terms, I believe it’s high time that I introduce this evening’s guest of honor.”
Dathrium turns toward the crowd and clears his throat. Raising his arms high, he addresses the gathering in his baritone.
“Ladies and lords, and esteemed guests of the realm, may I have your attention!”
The chatter quiets down to a low murmur as people turn their attention toward the king.
“Attendees, esteemed guests, it is my privilege and honor to introduce tonight’s guest of honor. You know her as a great leader and even greater warrior. May I present to you the Queen of Bellera, Queen Sabine De Atano!”
“The Queen?” I whisper to myself, a bit puzzled as to why she’d be here and not defending Sabolin. Did Alegra make it in time with the message? Didn’t Sabine believe her? Oh my goddess, what if Alegra didn’t succeed? Sabolin could be burning and we’re all just having a dinner party.
A bugle sounds and the banquet hall doors burst open. Queen Sabine enters the banquet hall with her entourage. She takes her position at the opposite end of the table, opposite Dathrium and me, and bows reverently.
“Thank you my liege,” she says. “It is my deepest honor to be your special guest. I hope tonight marks the start of a long and lasting friendship between our nations.”
Spotting Bethriel keeping to the outer wings of the banquet hall, I shoot her a confused look. She responds with an equally baffled look and shrugs. Mouthing the words, “I don’t know,” she scans the room for any signs of foul play. Like me, she’s beginning to suspect something’s not quite right here.
We take our seats. Lord Dathrium and I sit next to one another at the center and Dragoron sits off to our immediate right. To our left sits Zarine and Queen Sabine. After we’ve been seated, the rest of the guests take their seats. Bethriel sits far to the end, in the fifth to last seat on the left. It’s only then that I realize that nearly half the guests are elves. There is also one red-bearded dwarf sitting across from Bethriel. He looks vaguely familiar to me, but I can’t quite place him.
Now more than ever I suspect something more is going on here that meets the eye, but what it is I still cannot fathom.
Servers pour wine into our glasses and Dathrium makes a long-winded toast honoring Queen Sabine. She toasts him back. Once they’ve made it through all the pomp and circumstance of diplomacy, the minstrels begin to play and everyone engages in polite discussion. Everyone but me.
I can feel myself sweating through my remarkable dress. Worse that this, however, is the fact that I have been seated next to Zarine.
“What’s the matter?” Zarine asks. “You haven’t touched your food.”
“I…um…I’m not hungry.” Usually I’d trade barbs with her, but the truth is my mind is elsewhere. However, it’s clear that Zarine is completely unaware of the ethical dilemma I face. Not that she’d care even if she knew.
“Don’t tell me you’re watching your figure,” Zarine quips, eyeing me judgmentally. Her eyes pan down to my waist and she smacks her teeth disapprovingly.
In response to her impolite prodding, I shoot her a severe look. She merely grins at me, like a hungry shark circling its prey. That sets me off, so I decide I will reply after all.
I deliberately glance down at her tiny breasts and snigger under my breath. To rub it in, I grab my chest and adjust my cleavage, giving my breasts a good squeeze to send the message that I, unlike her, have something to fill up my hands.
Zarine looks down at my chest, then hers. She folds her arms across her chest and turns her back to me and lets out an irritated huff as she pouts.
When Dathrium leans over to whisper something into Dragoron’s ear, I pretend to drop my napkin. I reach under my armpit, to where the edge of my breast peeks out of my dress just below my arm, and search for the vial. After a few seconds of groping, I realize it’s missing. “Oh, no!” I gasp.
“What now?” Zarine asks, her voice less than amused. Under the table I see Zarine cross her legs, shifting away from me, as if I’m vermin.
Still fidgeting around under the table, I suddenly hear Dathrium’s boisterous voice. “Is everything all right, my dear?”
Thinking on my toes, I quickly slip off my left earring. I rise back up into my seat, careful not to hit my head on the edge of the table. I hold out the earring in the open palm of my hand for everyone to see, and say, “Oh, it’s nothing. I thought I had lost my earring. But I found it.”
Dathrium chortles, dismissing it as a mundane girl problem, and then goes back to talking to Dragoron. That gives me enough time to refasten my earring. All of a sudden, Zarine elbows me sharply in the ribs.
“Ow!” I cry out. “What was that for?”
“The Queen would like to have a word with you. That is, if you haven’t lost your nerve as well?”
I see Queen Sabine motion me to come closer with her finger. Leaning across Zarine’s chest, making sure to touch her unnecessarily just to irritate her, I listen attentively to what Queen Sabine has to say.
“I’ve brought the elves. Reinforcements stand just outside waiting for my order. All you must do is complete your part of the mission. Then we can take the palace and put an end to Dathrium’s evil reign once and for all.”
I give the queen a worried look and nod at Zarine, who can hear everything.
“Don’t worry,” Zarine says. “I’m a mole. It was Queen Sabine’s idea to have me infiltrate the palace by becoming Dragoron’s pupil. Once I did, I was to gain his trust. Bringing you in gained that trust. But like you, my true loyalties are to my queen.” She fiddles with her half of the pendant as she speaks, alluding to the fact that she is being sincere.
“What about Bellera? The bell tower? The whole kidnapping thing?” I ask.
“I was already working for Dragoron by that time. His interest in you is…how shall I say it…something of an obsession.”
I turn back toward Queen Sabine. “You knew about this?”
She folds her arms and looks away, as if to say it was necessary and that she has nothing more to say regarding the matter. I huff angrily and look the other way.
Several hours go by when, suddenly, Queen Sabine stands up, raises her glass, and taps it with the silverware. “Ladies and gentlemen, lend me your ears!”
The crowd falls silent and everyone, fatigued with small talk, anxiously await Sabine’s announcement.
“I’m sure you are all wondering why we’ve all been called to this impromptu gathering. Well, as it turns out, I want to ask my longtime partner, Zarine Xakhandi, if she’d marry me.”
“Are you serious?” Zarine asks, slowly standing to meet Queen Sabine. Sabine pulls out a big jewel necklace. At the center is a pendant. It’s a blue Dragon’s eye crystal. The rarest of the rare. She slips it around Zarine’s neck. Zarine, overcome with emotion, leaps into Queen Sabine’s arms and kisses her.
“I guess that’s a yes,” bellows Dathrium, beaming ear to ear with the jolliest smile you could imagine.
“Hear, hear!” the pie-faced dwarf shouts out, raising his mug and spilling his wine on the guests to either side of him. His uproar kicks off a wave of applause. Everyone seems to be genuinely happy about the news.
I look over just in time to see Lord Dragoron, with my vial of poison, about to dump it into Dathrium’s drink.
Without hesitating, I reach over and grab Dragoron’s wrist and shout, “STOP!”
Dathrium turns to find me holding Dragoron by the wrist, who’s caught in the act of attempting to poison Dathrium’s glass.
“What are you doing?” Dathrium hisses through clenched teeth as he looks at Dragoron as though he has just stabbed him in the back.
”It’s not what it looks like,” Dragoron deflects.
“And what exactly does it look like?!” Dathrium roars, his face burning with rage and the effects of one too many glasses of alcohol.
“Dragoron,” Que
en Sabine shouts, echoing Dathrium’s dismay, “explain yourself!”
Dropping the vial, Dragoron clasps his hands together and signs a few sacred symbols, then says, “Imperium ex cappa!”
There is a loud blast and a flash of green energy followed by a dark puff of smoke, and he vanishes.
Dathrium turns his rage to Queen Sabine and draws out his sword. “If I find that you had anything to do with this,” he growls.
Queen Sabine stands her ground. “I’m just as shocked as you are.”
This enrages him even further. He places the tip of his blade under her chin, forcing me to step back. I hear a series of shocked gasps among the onlookers in response to this sudden turn of events.
37
The tension in the air is so thick that you can practically taste it. And it’s so full of bitterness that I can’t help but feel a sense of sympathy for Dathrium, whose heart must be crumbling inside his chest over the betrayal he has experienced. The entire crowd seems to be holding their breath waiting for what will happen next. Before they even have time to piece all the bits of the drama together, the Royal Guard burst into the room and take up positions all around the perimeter along the back wall. In no time, the entire banquet table and all the guests are surrounded by armor-clad warriors.
From across the room, Bethriel gives me a worried look and nods toward a nearby exit, suggesting we might escape out the back together. I raise my hand ever so subtly to let her know to hold on. I need to know how this all pans out. Determined to get to the bottom of this strange twist of events, I step in between Dathrium and Queen Sabine to prevent them from going at each other.
Dathrium lowers his blade, as not to harm me, and I raise my hands and say, “Wait. Something isn’t right about all of this. I don’t know if you’ve realized, but we’re all being played like pawns.”
“What is this girl going on about?” Dathrium asks.
“Hear me out,” I say to Dathrium. I place my hand on his arm to let him know I sympathize with him and that I, in this strange and confused moment, actually am on his side, for once.
“Be careful what you admit to, Arianna,” Queen Sabine tells me. “Sharing confidential information would be treasonous.”
I shoot Queen Sabine a harsh glance. “What’s truly treasonous is the fact that I tried to kill this man. Dathrium had every right to lock me up and throw away the key. Instead he fed, clothed, and forgave me. I do not think he is the man you think he is.” Turning back to Dathrium, I say, “My liege, I beg you to hear me out. Dwell upon my words as if your very life depends on it, because it very well may.”
“I’m listening,” Dathrium says.
“Lord Dragoron has been playing you like a fiddle. It was he who summoned Ashram and unleashed the army of the dead. It was he who burned down the holy obelisk in the city. And it was he who ordered Ashram to attack the holy city of Sabolin.”
More gasps break out in the crowd Dathrium looks at me sternly. “And you can prove all this?”
“Yes, I can.”
Zarine sends me a look of reassurance and then chimes in. “I can vouch for her. Arianna is telling the truth. After I became his apprentice and gained Dragoron’s trust, he asked me to pin the fire on Arianna. I conferred with Queen Sabine, and together we devised a plan to root out Dragoron’s treachery.”
“It appears we’re all merely victims of a much larger deception,” Queen Sabine says.
Out of thin air, two hand reach out and pull me back. I try to scream, but one hand covers my mouth and muffles my cry. However, it’s enough to catch the attention of the others.
Suddenly, a blade is pressed to my throat. Looking up I see Dragoron. He’d only hidden himself with an invisibility spell.
Dathrium holds up a hand to calm Dragoron. “Leave the girl alone, Zoriel. She has done nothing to you.”
“Oh,” Dragoron snarls, “but she has. She’s thwarted me at every step of the way. But no more!”
He begins to press the blade into my throat, drawing out a trickle of blood. Zarine raises her hand and shouts, “Wait!”
“And what does the traitor want?” Dragoron hisses, looking at Zarine with cold hard eyes.
“Take me hostage instead.”
“I don’t need you,” he says. “I already have a perfectly fine hostage right here.” He adds pressure to the blade and I groan from the pain as he cuts a little bit more into my neck.
“Stop this!” Dathrium roars. “That’s an order.”
“That’s rich,” Dragoron says in a snide tone. “But let me ask you this, dear Dathrium, did you know that as we speak, Queen Sabine has her army outside the city gates and is waiting to move in on her command?”
“What? Is this true?” Dathrium bellows, throwing his arm back and waving at the windows that peer out onto the night lights of the city.
“It’s true,” Queen Sabine growls, glaring at Dragoron angrily. “But I was merely taking the necessary precautions. It wasn’t clear if the throne had been compromised. I couldn’t take the chance that it was.”
“You see, Lord Dathrium, our enemies are all around us,” Dragoron says. His cold, hard gaze travels from Dathrium to Queen Sabine and, finally, to Zarine. After a moment, he lets up on the blade that’s pressed against my neck, and, finally, gives me up. Letting me free, he shoves me forward.
I stumble forward. Unaccustomed to wearing a long dress, I trip and tumble into Zarine. She throws her arms out and catches me. Sighs of relief seep out of the attentive audience. I’m sure it’s the most excitement they’ve had all week.
“Thanks,” I say, as she helps me back onto my feet.
“Don’t mention it,” she says with a smile. And for the first time I think maybe we really could put the past behind us and be friends.
“I could have escaped, but didn’t,” Dragoron says. “I could have killed this girl,” he says pointing at me, “but I didn’t. Please, hear me out my king,” Dragoron pleads with Dathrium. “It’s not what you think. I’m not the enemy here. Everything I did…I did it for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Dathrium asks.
Pointing at the table full of guests, he growls, “All these years, they never accepted you. They always considered you a pale imitation of your illustrious cousin, even though it was you winning the wars upon the battlefield. It was you who shed your blood for king and country while your no-good cousin, King Pelos, merely watched from afar. From the safety of his tent upon the hill. But it was you who got your hands dirty with dirt and blood and the tears of fallen soldiers whom you cradled in your arms as they asked you to pass their love on to their families. It was you who made Valandra great. Not your useless cousin. And after years of plotting my revenge, at long last, I finally set a plan in motion that would right the wrongs we endured. I’m afraid King Pelos was just the first step in executing this plan.”
The banquet hall erupts with startled gasps and hysterical swooning. A few of the maidens faint while others begin to shout angrily for Dragoron’s head.
“You killed my cousin? You killed King Pelos?” Dathrium asks, tears flooding into his eyes. “He was like a brother to me!”
“Aren’t you listening?!” Dragoron yells. “I did it for you! Don’t you see? With King Pelos out of the way, there was nothing to prevent your rise to power. It was inevitable. And here you are now, regnant imperium!”
“And you freely admit to killing King Pelos, then?” Queen Sabine asks from behind her fierce blue eyes that sparkle with energy.
“Not only do I freely admit it, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant Dathrium could reign in his place.”
“And, my dear Dragoron,” Dathrium says, his voice low and brusque as it fills with a broiling rage. Gripping tightly to his sword with both hands, he asks, “Did you think you could manipulate me so easily?”
“Manipulate you? I was helping you! What else do you want me to say? Sorry? Sorry for making you powerful? Sorry for giving you everything I had? Sorry
for wanting you to be happy? Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not sorry!”
Lord Dathrium raises his blade high and stabs Dragoron straight through the chest. Dragoron, in a state of shock, grabs the blade with his hands and sinks down to his knees.
The dinner guests watch the horrific scene with bated breath. Dathrium stands over Dragoron, holding his blade in his chest. When, suddenly, Dathrium mercilessly tears the sword back out, the audience gasps.
Blood splatter flies of the blade and dapples my cheek, so I wipe it off with the back of my hand. I look at Zarine. She wipes the blood from her collar with her pointer finger then, to my horror, sticks it in her mouth and sucks it clean.
Dathrium holds his sword in both hands, and I can tell he’s, upset as his arms are still shaking with rage, even as his lover’s blood drips off the tip of his blade.
Pierced through the heart, Dragoron rests on his knees and looks down at his blood-soaked hands. The life slowly drains from his veins and his face turns a ghostly white. Raising his face to Dathrium one last time, he reaches up with bloody hands to attempts to touch Dathrium’s sleeve. But before his fingers can make contact, his body goes limp and Dragoron falls to the ground. Dead.
“Leave me!” Dathrium shouts at the top of his lungs, his entire body still shaking with a mix of adrenaline and dry sobs. “Leave me, now!”
I realize that Dragoron was more than a dutiful servant to Dathrium. The sadness in Dathrium’s eyes gives it away. And considering he’s had plenty of time to morn his cousin, it only seems unfair that he had to lose his friend too. Another casualty of a bygone war that still haunts us all.
Dathrium is holding back a deluge of tears, but he refuses to let a single one fall in front of his subjects.
A hand reaches out and touches me on the shoulder. It’s Queen Sabine. “Come on! You heard the man. Let’s go.”
Dathrium shares a sideways glance with Queen Sabine and he nods, thanking her silently for her maintaining her loyal friendship, and quite possibly, for not overthrowing the kingdom.
